This book is a manifesto urging deeper thought about what we design as well as how and why we design. As design thinking deepens, its reach widens, making this a book not just for designers but also for policymakers, government ministers, company CEOs and other makers-of-big-decisions.

The world we live in presents a myriad of complex, critical challenges which design thinking has the potential to resolve. The hope in writing this book is that when future generations look back and reflect on how we succeeded in steering away from our climate-warming, species-killing, polluting habits of the past towards a more productive, life-fulfilling and equitable future, they might see the hand of deep design thinking on the tiller.

Seaton and Mike Baxter are father and son who have both been Professors of Design and have contributed, over several decades between them, to the fields of ecological design, product design and strategy design. This book is the result of many years of discussions between them on the nature of design and the ideas and practicalities that lead to deep design thinking.